Stay on target

Cartoon Network has long been home to brilliant and formative cartoons. For kids who grew up in the 1990s, one of those cartoons was Dragonball Z. For kids growing up now, it’s Steven Universe. If you’re not a regular Cartoon Network viewer, you should know they have some amazing stuff right now. Steven Universe, in particular, is an always-relevant science fantasy story that has been consistently brilliant. It follows Steven, a half-human half alien Crystal Gem, who defends Beach City from extraterrestrial threats with the help of three friendly alien Gems.

Of course, being a cartoon for the children of today, it has to keep up with, or at least be aware of, the internet memes its audience is passing around. That’s where Dragonball Z came in. Fans of the classic anime will remember Yamcha’s first death. Long story short, Yamcha tried to take on Nappa, a powerful alien villain when he was nowhere near strong enough to. Nappa didn’t even fight Yamcha himself, enlisting a disposable Saibaman to fight for him. The battle carried on as DBZ fights do, and Yamcha was killed, ending up face down in a crater. Fans began using the image as a meme for when someone tries and fails at something they had no hope of accomplishing.

Reddit user TJax spotted Steven Universe having some fun with the meme. Ruby found herself going up against a threat that was just a little too strong for her and well… it worked out about as well for her as it did for Yamcha.

Fans enjoyed the reference, and it’s pretty amazing that two generations of Cartoon Network met up like this. While it’s clear that Ruby will come back about as easily as Yamcha did, Steven Universe fans are hoping she won’t be nearly as useless. The probably have nothing to worry about. Ruby’s cool. Yamcha always kind of sucked.